Raising Orphaned
or Injured Possums

After the Fires - Re-Building the Towns Green

How are we going with sustainable re-building of towns like Flowerdale and Kinglake after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria?

A few weeks after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria we wrote about the opportunity of re-building the devastated towns green - We dreamed of whole towns selling green electricity back to the grid rather than buying electricity from it.

In that article we noted that the opportunity to build whole towns from scratch in an environmentally sustainable way does not come along
very often.

The experience we would gain from attempting to make a whole town 100% sustainable would propel us down the road towards making our large cities pollution-free and in-harmony with the natural environment they exist in.

According to a United Nations report, our cities are responsible for 70% of emissions, yet occupy only 2% of the planet's land cover, so it is particularly important to make our towns and cities green. The UN report warns of a "deadly collision between climate change and urbanisation" if we don't take action now.

The technology to build model eco-towns has been around for many years, and in our previous article we explored the Earthship technology & design developed by Garbage Warrior Michael Reynolds in New Mexico. He has since built many Earthships in natural disaster affected areas around the world, and the rammed-earth method of construction is ideal for dry fire-prone areas like Victoria.


Earthship in Baja California, Mexico


The only reason we haven't employed sustainable building methods like these on a large scale here in Australia is because we lack the will
to do so.

The people of the town of Flowerdale in Victoria, which was completely destroyed in the Black Saturday fires, should be commended for giving environmentally sustainable re-building a red-hot-go.



It's not their fault that over two years after the fires, there are still very few sustainable buildings, businesses and transport options in Flowerdale.

You can follow the progress of the people of Flowerdale in the
Build-it-Back-Green site:
http://builditbackgreen.org/bushfires/on-the-ground.aspx

Government and industry are making only half-hearted efforts to support the willingness of the people of Flowerdale to build back green.

The total amount of green rebates easily available from Government is $5300 per household, made up of:

• Solar Hot Water Rebates - up to $1600
• Heat Pump Rebates - $600
• Rainwater Tank Rebates - $1000
• Grey water System Rebates - $500
• Appliance Rebates - $100
• LPG Gas Conversion Rebates - $1,500
  Total Rebates available per household - $5300

For most people this is nowhere near enough! More financial help and incentive is needed from Governments who are stricken with fear of a backlash from big businesses that are actively fighting against
the needed changes.

The inability to change with the times and the short term view of power and oil companies is a major cause of the economic problems the world is facing today. The only reason that the introduction of sustainable technologies like plug-in electric cars have been stopped dead in their tracks is because big business didn't want it to proceed. The more that these big companies will not let go of the past, the more suffering we are all likely to experience in the future.

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Before a fundamental change towards environmentally sustainable living can be achieved, a fundamental change in the
focus of human nature is required.

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In this Age of Aquarius we need to begin focussing on our spirituality – especially concerning our direct relationship with nature.


The Environment from a Spiritual Perspective
From a spiritual point of view, all of our arguments over whether or not climate change is down to human intervention are a sideshow.

From a spiritual point of view, the noxious fumes of unchecked and greedy industry are a manifestation of the fundamental problem:
Our lives are out of balance. - Koyaanisqatsi

In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living"



It is easy to see that things like poverty, violence, wars, polluted skies, radiation, poisoned water and plastic-chocked oceans are caused by the people of this planet and are the direct consequences of our out-of-balance lives. But further to this and from a spiritual point of view, the symptoms of our out-of-balance lives also include the melting ice caps, rising sea levels, green house warming, and the earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and extreme weather events that we are now experiencing.

From a spiritual perspective, the longer we delay the imperative changes to the way we power and live our lives, the more often and extreme will be the natural disasters that we will manifest and have to endure.

In Australia we witness many other countries around the world utilising innovative sustainable building technologies much more than we are presently doing here. We lack the same willingness and cooperation from all the relevant government bodies, associations and business trades to allow the technologies to be employed.

It's been over two years since the Black Saturday fires devastated so much of the Victorian countryside, and during that time our land of sweeping plains has turned from drought to flooding rains.

How many more environmental disasters will we have to endure before the penny drops and we realise that our present way of life is actually creating the imbalance that causes the disasters?

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(Earthship information and photographs reprinted here with permission, from the Earthship website)

Phoenix From the Fire?

Sustainable Re-Building After the Victorian Bush Fires
Over 2,000 houses were destroyed in the recent Victorian bush fires; whole towns were wiped off the map with tragic human cost.

The Black Saturday fires have given us a graphic experience of extreme weather events soon to become more frequent with global warming, but out of that tragedy also comes a once-in-a-lifetime clean-slated opportunity to re-build whole towns in an environmentally sustainable way, and to experiment with new ways of sustainable living on a mainstream township scale.

As it was the effects of global warming that destroyed the homes, it would be quite ludicrous to rebuild them in a way that will continue to make global warming worse.

We have a chance to ensure that the deaths of so many people in the Black Saturday fires were not in vain. We have a chance to completely eliminate environmentally harmful household emissions on a township scale, by building environmentally sustainable houses that will also be far more likely to survive bush fires intact.

So far, as a nation we’ve done absolutely nothing to halt the effects of global warming on a large enough scale to make any difference what so ever, apart from making things worse.

It makes sense that houses destroyed by the effects of global warming should be rebuilt in a way that will not cause more global warming, and it would be irresponsible of every Australian and the Australian Government not to get behind environmentally sustainable rebuilding of all houses destroyed by extreme weather events.

Here is a chance to experiment with environmentally sustainable living on a large enough scale to make a difference and to show the rest of Australia and the world how we all urgently need to be living. And we aren’t talking about ugly, institutionalised, fire-proof bunkers; Rather we must build beautifully designed, comfortable, liveable and personalised homes that are loved by the people who are to live in them.

The aim is to build a whole town; Environmentally sustainable, off-the-grid, beautifully designed and liveable, which we can showcase to the world. (Inside an Earthship... see below)

It will cost Australia some money, but if we can contribute to the problems of the world with $4.4 billion dollars on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or mismanage $1.32 billion for 24 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets to last just a few years between the end of the F-111s in 2010 and the expected arrival of the F-35s in 2013, then we can certainly find considerably less than that to help save the world.

After the Bushfires ­ How do we Re-build?
Whether or not the new buildings are fireproofed isn’t the only concern in relation to the rebuilding process, it’s only one of the factors involved. The fires that destroyed the towns and houses were caused by an extreme weather event, which was in turn the result of our unsustainable living practices and house & building designs.

Re-building the houses simply to survive future fire is no longer good enough. Right now, out of the ashes of Black Saturday, we have the opportunity to re-build whole towns with self sufficient housing – houses containing their own Thermal/Solar Heating & Cooling, Solar & Wind powered electricity, self-contained Sewage Treatment and with their own Water Harvesting and Food Production facilities.

We need an organised and multi-disciplined environmentally integrated approach for re-building our burnt out towns, and a corresponding spiritual approach to living and life.

We can learn from the many groups of people already forging ahead with sustainable designed and constructed houses and buildings around the world. One such group is Earthship Biotecture (Taos, New Mexico)

Earthships
Earthship Biotecture is a company that produces environmentally sustainable designed and constructed houses called Earthships.

Earthships vary in design, but all contain sustainable solar/wind power, heating and cooling, and their own water collection/recycling and sewage treatment.

Earthship homes create their own electricity from solar panels and wind; Heat is absorbed into the home through large, correctly orientated double-glazed windows; Earthships maintain comfortable temperatures in any climate through contact with the Earth. The planet Earth is a thermally stabilizing mass that delivers stable temperatures into the home without wires or pipes.

Grey water is treated and recycled on site

Earthship water is collected from the roof and heated by the sun or natural gas. Earthship plumbing systems can be configured so that the "graywater" from sinks and showers is filtered through large indoor or outdoor gardens and used again to flush the toilets. Earthships contain, use and reuse all household sewage in indoor and outdoor treatment cells ultimately contributing to food production and landscaping with no pollution of aquifers.

Making the walls with old tyres packed with earth

The home itself is built largely with recycled materials most of which are easily available and free. Used steel-belted automobile tires, packed solid with earth, become giant 400-pound bricks that create soundproof, fire and earthquake resistant, fortress-like walls. Earthship houses cause no conflict, no stress, no depletion, and no trauma to the planet earth.

We are presently living on this planet as if we are not a part of it.
This must change.


Update September 2010 - Did We Learn Anything From the Victorian Bushfires? We will be doing a more up-to-date report on whether the government and people from the fire affected areas have rebuilt Green. Sustainable building practices need to be supported by the Australian State and Federal Government. Is this happening? We will report on this in the coming months.

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(Earthship information and photographs reprinted here with permission, from the Earthship website)

Environmental Articles from a Spiritual Perspective

Subjects for articles coming soon:
* Earthship building restrictions in Australia.
* Using our natural resources wisely
* Cleanly converting the physical energies of our planet into power for    daily use
* The latest scientific thought, philosophical and practical applications of    incorporating this knowledge into everyday life
* Clean, sustainable food production methods; clean crop production    and humane animal farming practices
* Animal welfare
* Improving social infrastructure, housing and transport
* Living in harmony with our cultural, political and social differences    without ignorance and fear

We welcome contributors.
If you have something to say concerning local or global environmental/social issues from a spiritual perspective, let us know.